Burst Carbonation & Counter pressure bottle filling

[vikikayia]

Hey hey

So, I'm supremely new to carbonation & bottle filling and I'm kinda uncertain about a few things. To start with, I'm not carbonating/bottling beer, but cocktails. Don't know if that's acceptable here With both burst carbonation and crank & shake I have the same issue. Say I carbonate with either method at 50PSI, what's the drill after that and before bottling with regards to bottling PSI? I've read post on reddit about counter pressure fillers (https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/87760r/psa_about_counter_pressure_bottle_fillers/) and they say to bottle at the same pressure you carbonated with. Bottling at 50PSI doesn't really work, so how should I handle this? Say I go with Burst Carbonating at 50PSI for 24 hours, do I then release pressure from the keg and repressurise at lets say 20PSI in order to bottle? I carbonate through the liquid line and purge the keg before carbonation. Any guidance would be very much appreciated!

Many thanks!

 

[RealRayDizzle]

How many vols of Co2 are you going for? (For example do you intend to have the cocktails contain similar Co2 levels to soda?)

counter pressure fillers can get messy at high Co2 levels, everything from the keg down to the bottles needs to be cold. Even 50 PSI at 38F deg for 2 days may get it carbed but not equalized. Although I have not tried cocktails like this, I use this method for beer all the time

Fill keg and set regulator to 30 PSI
place keg in kegorator and let come down to 36-38 deg while on 30 PSI
after 2 days release pressure, bring down regulator to 12 PSI then let sit for at least 2 more days
end up with about 2.6 vol consistently.

At this point if I am to fill bottles, i drop regulator to 6-10 psi then degass the keg (PSI depending on how much foam I am getting from the first couple fills)

cold is key since Co2 will foam faster as the liquid will warm up

but after the first 2 days the beer only has carbonation for a glass or 2 before it starts tasting flat.

hope this helps a bit

 

[vikikayia]

How many vols of Co2 are you going for? (For example do you intend to have the cocktails contain similar Co2 levels to soda?)

counter pressure fillers can get messy at high Co2 levels, everything from the keg down to the bottles needs to be cold. Even 50 PSI at 38F deg for 2 days may get it carbed but not equalized. Although I have not tried cocktails like this, I use this method for beer all the time

Fill keg and set regulator to 30 PSI
place keg in kegorator and let come down to 36-38 deg while on 30 PSI
after 2 days release pressure, bring down regulator to 12 PSI then let sit for at least 2 more days
end up with about 2.6 vol consistently.

At this point if I am to fill bottles, i drop regulator to 6-10 psi then degass the keg (PSI depending on how much foam I am getting from the first couple fills)

cold is key since Co2 will foam faster as the liquid will warm up

but after the first 2 days the beer only has carbonation for a glass or 2 before it starts tasting flat.

hope this helps a bit

Many thanks for replying! Much appreciated
Yeah soda level carbonation would be my goal. everything is chilled consistently throughout carbonation and then at bottling to 34°F - everything is chilled in crushed ice since we have it in abundance
So what you're saying is that it may get carbonated by using burst carbonation for two days (and omitting the 2 days equalisation at 12 PSI) but it will go flat in the glass, or it will go flat after filling a couple of bottles?
Cheers

 

[vikikayia]

Also, when you say dropping regulator to 6-10 psi and then degassing, do you mean for it to drop from the 12PSI it was to 6-10, or to degass it completely?
Thank you!

 

[RealRayDizzle]

I try to bottle fill a little lower than target drinking pressure, so degas keg and reset to 6-10psi. for fizzy cocktails you are probably shooting for 4+ vols CO2, so at 34 deg, 30 PSI should be more than enough. after about 3 days at that temp and pressure you would over carb most beer styles, but for this 3-4 days at 30 may get you where you want.

After the Co2 is absorbed once you get it into the bottle it will stay carbonated as long as the seal on the cap is good.
If the solution has not fully absorbed the co2, it would start to loose Co2 after a couple fills. so first few bottles would be carbonated how you want, then subsequent bottles will start to taste a bit flat.

The goal is to get the Co2 fully dissolved and equalized in the solution, once this is done, the bottling pressure usually does not matter as much, just enough to get the liquid to slowly fill the bottle.

At pressures that high, best you could do is get it all really cold and adjust.

Regular beer bottle is only rated at about 45 PSI, so careful if your trying to bottle at high pressure

 

[vikikayia]

That makes things clear, thank you so much.
According to the chart the results at 30PSi for 48 hours are similar to 50PSI for 24 hours before equalizing - would this yield the same result do you think?

 

[RealRayDizzle]

Before equalizing, it should,

I think the pressure and temp when doing a force carbonation as shown in charts is ending vols after the liquid absorbs the Co2.
With a 24hr quick shot of co2 it is like taking a bunch of big bubbles and forcing them into liquid they don't actually meld together until you dissolve the bubbles into smaller ones. This happens with time or the "shake the keg" version. but crank and shake can easily over carb, and for bottling you would still have to wait a couple days for the foam to die down else when you try and use the bottler it will be a foamy mess.

 

[Bobby_M]

There's no such thing as big bubbles and little bubbles when it comes to carbonation. The CO2 is either dissolved or it's not.

The charts will get you the volumes listed in just over 2 weeks of sitting around. You can get there faster by going way above the chart but it's not perfectly predictable. You can check your volumes of CO2 by putting a pressure gauge on the gas port but be sure you note the pressure and come back and read it an hour later. If the two pressures are the same, you can refer to the chart to see the volumes.

The filling process is tricky at high volumes. You can't drop the keg pressure because the whole fill hose will just be bubbles. You'll want to use a very long fill hose to hold the back pressure and even better, use a counterpressure filler. Get the keg and product as close to freezing as you can.

 

[vikikayia]

Thanks all for your input, it's so much appreciated!
So, the place I'm in right now is as follows:
The burst carbonation part is fine - which means that I've burst carbonated the keg at 50PSI for 36 hours to give me the amount of carbonation desired. If i completely purge the keg without a line connected to it and then try some of the liquid inside, it is carbonated really well.
The issue comes up in bottling.
I completely degas and repressurize (or just drop the PSI level, I've tried both) to 20 PSI for at least 12 hours (I've also done 48),in order to use the counter pressure filler to fill the bottles. I presume it also counter effects the agitation of lowering the pressure from 50 to 20 PSI. The end result is very much flatter than the liquid in the keg. I've read that basically everything should be in equilibrium when using a counter pressure filler. So, your keg should be equalised and the PSI used for filling should be the same pressure so that your bottle is pressurised at the same PSI as your headspace and liquid so that it doesn't foam, which makes (theoretical) sense. The thing is that is it still foams (there is also sugar and/or in this drink, which is what i presume makes it different to soda water which I have bottled without these issues).
So I deduce that there are two schools of thought - I've read that using a CPF you should either fill at carbonation PSI to eradicate differences in pressure and foaming, or that you should bottle at a REALLY low PSI in order to avoid foaming.
I'm quite perplexed at this point as to - how come it's so much different doing it with soda water and why it foams so much, and how to overcome these issues.
Note that the keg is around 34-35°F both during carbonation and bottling. Does ambient temperature matter? Should I stick bottles, line and CPF in the freezer?

EDIT

So - I've been giving it some some though. If the liquid I have inside is highly carbonated then it means that in theory I should be bottling at a really high PSI so that the carbonation in the drink doesn't escape due to the low pressure in the bottle. This proves to be a problem with a CPF - bottling at 30PSI is really difficult since there is a big risk of the bottling bursting and the CPF just bounces due to the high pressure in the bottle and the drink foams. Any ideas?

 

[rushpapers]

I'm finding that the low and slow carbonation method produces much better carbonation, versus burst carbonation. The bubbles seem smaller and more delicate. I find it helps greatly when counterpressure bottling.

I believe the problems you may be running into are a result of overcarbonation and not getting the co2 into solution.

For low and slow: I set my pressure 14 PSI, temp at 32F and forget about it for two weeks.

My burst carbonation method was 30 PSI for 96 hours, at 34F.